


let's show them we are better

by figure8



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, also this is a love letter to kim jongin, like not tons of it but it's the Theme, rich boys in europe, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 06:19:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16655836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: It’s one in the morning and Sehun has just ordered a raspberry-flavored beer when he realizes he’s in love with Jongin.





	let's show them we are better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exosjunhao](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosjunhao/gifts).



> av told me to write about sekai + paris by the chainsmokers so i did

**_If we go down, then we go down together_ **

**_They’ll say you could do anything_ **

**_They’ll say that I was clever_ **

 

July is the worst month to be a tourist in the City of Lights. The air feels sticky, thick with pollution, and the weather is _heavy,_ warm in an inescapable way. Sehun doesn’t care. He takes fifty-seven different selfies under the Arc de Triomphe, and twice as much the day they visit the _Quartier Latin._ Jongin makes him film the illuminations on the Eiffel Tower, and then he’s dancing under the flashing lights so Sehun films that, too, and immediately posts it on Instagram. Jongin looks good, even if he’s wearing double denim. His hair is a soft caramel color, the dye job recent and still perfect, and it makes him appear even tanner, somehow. When he smiles, Sehun finds himself on an imaginary roller coaster. It’s a little overwhelming. He tells himself it’s Paris. It’s the summer, the foreign setting, the spirit of vacations and freedom. They’re done with uni, celebrating their new hard-earned diplomas in the most extravagant way, in the most extravagant city. Sehun promised himself the sweetest indulgences for maintaining his perfect GPA. And sure, at the time he was thinking about five star hotels, not about allowing himself to stare at his best friend’s ass, but whatever. Whatever.

Jongin wants to see everything. He gets them nosebleed seats to a play at the Comédie Française even if neither of them speaks french. He drags Sehun to the Louvre on a Wednesday, because it’s the one day the museum closes late. He has a small bottle of apple flavored vodka in his bag and they make a drinking game out of the Egyptian Antiquity exhibit. When they stumble outside the night has fallen, deep blue, and Jongin runs around the glass pyramids like a child, drunk and happy. Sehun films that, too. He doesn’t post it anywhere.

They go to the Opera. They go to the _Musée d’Orsay,_ they walk down the _Champs-Elysées,_ they go up to Montmartre. At the end of each day, Sehun’s legs burn in the most satisfying way. The memory card on his Cannon is almost full. Jongin takes a grainy picture of both of them at the _Flore_ while they share a cup of melon sorbet and makes it his phone wallpaper. Sehun changes his own lockscreen to a photo of the Seine.

On the 14th, they spend the night outside with everyone else, under the fireworks. The French don’t care much for social rules on their national day, Sehun discovers. Everyone in the street is inebriated. He spots two women kissing and averts his eyes, a familiar anxiety tying his stomach into knots. _You’re not home,_ a tiny voice whispers inside his head. _No one cares here. They passed the law on marriage years ago._ Jongin throws an arm around his shoulders and Sehun goes easily, follows him through a stone-paved path to a small bar he found on Yelp the day before. It’s one in the morning and Sehun has just ordered a raspberry-colored beer when he realizes he’s in love with Jongin.

It’s not earth-shattering. Paris definitely played a role, albeit not in the way he tried to convince himself of at the very beginning of their trip. It’s the anonymity, the weirdness of Europe. It’s that one waitress who assumed they were a couple and told them they were _cute,_ not a drop of disgust in her voice. Sehun isn’t naive, he knows people hate everywhere. It’s just simpler, here, where no one knows him, and mistakes aren’t fatal. In the bathroom of their hotel room, under the harsh white light, he looks at his reflection in the mirror, bare-faced and exhausted, and says it out loud for the first time. The glass doesn’t break.

Jongin wants to dance. There’s a nightclub in the XVIe, expensive as hell, quintessentially Parisian. All the girls look like they just stepped out of a movie. Jongin, too, looks absolutely surreal, but that’s always the case. He could belong here, Sehun thinks, watching him move along to the music. His pants are rolled up around his ankles, artsy, _sexy._ He’s sandwiched between two gorgeous ladies, and he seems to be having a glorious time, so Sehun stays close to the bar, nurses his Martini. When Jongin makes his way back to him three songs later, he’s disheveled and grinning, sweat gathering at his temple. Sehun unthinkingly wipes it with his thumb. He has a number scribbled in black marker on the inside of his forearm. There’s no language barrier for people who move their hips like Jongin.

Jongin wants to dance. He types something on the Google search bar on his phone, tilts his screen towards Sehun. This club is in the _Marais._ Sehun feels the blood drain from his face. The set of Jongin’s jaw is maybe a little tighter than usual, his hand unsteady where it’s holding the electronic device. Sehun doesn’t know how to tell him not to worry, the words lodged inside his throat, like crushed ice piling up, choking him. _I know, I know, me too._

It’s never been a question, really, if Jongin likes men. Sehun has always known, since day one, years ago, eighteen and fresh out of high school, during their college orientation. It was in the way Jongin’s eyes traveled too slowly up beautiful boys. It was in the way he held himself, too. Guarded, a weight on his shoulders. Sehun recognized it because it reminded him of his own reflection.

They dress up. Jongin takes a pair of scissors to one of his shirts, transforms it into a crop-top in two deft _clicks._ Sehun puts on his tightest pair of jeans. It feels a little like pretending. When Jongin slips his hand into Sehun’s left back pocket, it also feels a little like pretending.

It’s Paris. It’s the summer, and it’s this limbo between graduation and real adulthood, and it’s the four shots of Fireball. Sehun takes off his shirt, under the strobe lights, surrounded by dozens of men who are just like him but don’t speak Korean. Jongin places his palm on his abs, giggles when Sehun flexes. There is glitter on his skin, but fuck if he knows how it got there. Earlier, he was hugging a drag queen. Maybe then. Jongin wraps himself around Sehun, chin digging in the dip of his collarbone. It’s hot and unpleasant and perfect. They’re not really dancing anymore, just swaying, following the flow of the crowd and the music, a strange four-legged beast. Sehun thinks of other ways to become one and blushes. If this were a movie, they would be kissing by now. But this is his life, real life, and Jongin is his best friend because they saw something in each other, once upon a time, but it doesn’t mean that Jongin wants to sleep with him.

When they stumble back into their room at four in the morning, Jongin whispers that he wishes they didn’t have to go back, and a tsunami tide of sadness crashes over Sehun. This is where Jongin should stay, golden and free. Because he is Art, beautiful, statuesque; Sehun wants to build him a home between the stones of Notre-Dame. It’s a pipe dream. The moment a place becomes permanent it loses its magic anyway. Paris is safe because Paris is ephemeral. It can be somewhere they return to, but it can never be somewhere they stay in for too long.

Sehun thinks of telling him, while they’re getting breakfast. Croissants and two _allongés,_ pretentious, ordered in french almost without an accent because he’s practiced the sentence literally two hundred times in a row. Thinks of leaning across the table, lips brushing against the shell of Jongin’s ear, and letting it out, _I want you, I want to be on my knees for you._ Thinks of his hand on Jongin’s thigh, thinks of his mouth on Jongin’s neck. Thinks. Keeps his mouth shut and shifts on his plastic chair. Jongin is groggy in the morning, even after coffee. Sehun wants to kiss the sleepiness off his smile.

They go to the _Lafayette._ The building is impressive, but in the end it’s a shopping mall like any other shopping mall. Sehun insists they try the macarons at _Ladurée,_ even if nothing perishable should ever be this expensive. The rosewater one is his favorite. Jongin picks two nectarine flavored tiny pastries and eats them in delighted silence. Sehun snaps so many pictures of him inside the shop his iPhone decides to make an automatic album out of it. It’s a little embarrassing.

On their last night, they go out to a really nice restaurant in the IXe. The bottle of Merlot Sehun orders turns empty fast, and when they tell their _garçon_ they’re leaving the next day, he offers them a round of Calvados. It’s a different type of drunk, Sehun notices. He doesn’t have that much red wine often. Jongin is giggly and tactile when they exit the restaurant, and in the Uber he puts his head on Sehun’s lap. Sehun absently cards his fingers through his silky-soft hair. The driver doesn’t try to hold a conversation.

It takes them seven tries to insert their key card correctly. Jongin’s laughter rings in the hallway a little too loud for the hour, but no one comes out to shush them. Sehun drinks the sound like it’s nectar, savors it. When the door finally opens Jongin laughs again, his body shaking with it. It’s infectious, and Sehun laughs too as they fall on the mattress, Jongin’s, the one closest to the entrance, away from the window. Sehun buries his face in the blanket, inhales the comforting scent. Jongin pokes him in the rib, says they need to at least take their shoes off. All their stuff is packed, ready to go. They do eventually get up to get changed, but it takes time and prodding, Jongin’s cold nose in the crook of Sehun’s neck, Jongin jokingly biting his shoulder, _Jongin, Jongin._

CDG is a big, long airport. They’re traveling business, spoiled boys that they are, so they wait for their flight sheltered inside the Star Alliance lounge. Jongin takes a nap on one of the couches, and Sehun uses the coffee machine four times. He’s almost buzzing out of his skin when his best friend wakes up. He doesn’t know what he’s so nervous about. It’s not flying, he’s fine with flying, but something has him on the edge. Jongin playfully kicks him in the shin when his foot won't stop jolting.

There’s an hour left before boarding and Sehun was planning to do some duty free shopping, has been eyeing a small LV pouch for a while now, but Jongin is pressed against his side, soft and sleepy, scrolling through his Twitter timeline. It would be like dislodging a cat from its seat.

He lets his mind wander. When Jongin dances, he is fluid lines on white paper, like this one calligraphy class Sehun took freshman year. When Jongin dances, he throws his head back with the beat, the jut of his Adam’s apple tantalizing, the tender slope of his arched back alike an invitation. It doesn’t matter if it’s at a bar or in the street or at his end of the year showcase, Jongin dances everywhere with the same seriousness.

“I’m going to use the restrooms,” Jongin announces, taking Sehun out of his reverie. He pushes himself off the leather sofa and Sehun suddenly feels cold. He should get up too, tidy up, put the magazines and water bottles in their carry-ons. Instead he follows Jongin to the bathroom. Maybe he’ll put on some under-eye cream. Anything, really. Any excuse.

There’s no one else using the lavatories, and Jongin is already washing his hands when Sehun pushes the door open. Their shoulders knock when he goes to use the sink too.

“We should go to our gate, after this,” he says. Jongin shoots him a glance that has a heaviness to it Sehun can’t quite place.

“You’re really going to let us go back without making a move?”

It’s Paris, Sehun repeats dutifully, panic bubbling up at the pit of his belly. It’s Charles De Gaulle—airports are liminal spaces, like convenience stores at two in the morning, like aquariums, like the hardwood floor back in Jongin’s childhood home, where Sehun had slept in a sleeping bag for three days when Jongin’s mom had invited him for the holidays.

He opens his mouth then closes it wordlessly, like a fish. Jongin holds his gaze.

“You’re my best friend,” Sehun says finally, and he means it, but he also means something else.

Four years ago, handshakes, shy smiles, clumsy introductions. Three years ago, inside jokes, soju, nights spent at the library, Jongin’s laughter as a soundtrack. Two years ago, the stench of marijuana, winter break at Jongin’s, summer break at Sehun’s, always touching, never apart, never close enough. A year ago, the exhaustion of final exams, Jongin’s recitals, Sehun holding bouquet after bouquet, pride swelling inside his ribcage, _that’s my best friend, that’s my boy,_ making plans and making promises and making bets, and stealing glances, and stealing time.

Jongin kisses Sehun for the first time right before they board their flight back to Seoul, in the empty bathroom of the Star Alliance First Class lounge at CDG, under the rosy light of the large mirror, Sehun pressed against the marble countertop. _You’re my best friend too._ Looking back, Sehun doesn’t think he was blind, not exactly. Asleep, maybe, or lost. His father always asks if Jongin is coming along to any event Sehun is invited to. Sehun has been saying _we_ for quite a while now. _You’re my best friend too,_ Jongin says, _and I’m in love with you,_ the two sentences completing each other instead of contradicting each other, a wild card. _I’m in love with you,_ Jongin will say later, _because you’re my best friend._

And he knows. He knows, and he’s been waiting. He’s been waiting for Sehun, so patiently. Jongin’s not afraid, not of rejection at least, he _knows._ And the certitude of it, Sehun can taste it, as their lips slide together. God, Jongin licks into his mouth like a man leading an army. Sehun trembles, grateful for the hard surface behind him.

“We’re going to miss our flight,” he says mournfully, Jongin’s hand still cupping his jaw. They do not miss their flight. They board, and they sit next to each other like parentheses, bodies angled towards each other like magnets. Jongin’s hand spread on Sehun’s upper thigh under the complimentary blanket, Jongin’s head pillowed on Sehun’s shoulder after the fifth hour, when not even Disney movies can keep him awake.

And it wasn’t Paris, Sehun realizes. When they pick up their luggage from the carousel, Jongin wraps his hand around his to help him lift his huge suitcase onto the cart, and they’re in Seoul but it still feels electric. They take a cab to Sehun’s apartment even though the plan is for Jongin to go live with his sister for a while, and Sehun thought he would want to go back there first, unpack, find his bearings. Jongin slams the door behind them and cups Sehun’s face in his hands before he can even put his stuff down, kisses him like he’s starving for it. They’re not in Paris. They’re in South Korea, they’re _home,_ and Jongin is kissing him. In the middle of his new flat downtown, where Sehun is supposed to start his adult life, where Sehun is supposed to bring the girl he will eventually marry, where—

“I wanted you to be ready,” Jongin gasps between kisses, and Sehun moans low in his throat when his knee slots between Sehun’s legs, “But it was so hard, sometimes, I wanted you so bad—”

If he was someone else, Sehun would answer that he knows, because there were times where not touching Jongin felt like forcing himself to stop breathing, as dramatic as it sounds. Instead he thinks about how he doesn’t know if he even is ready, and curls a hand around Jongin’s nape to kiss him again.

“Are you gonna fuck me?” he asks when they break apart, blunt because it’s that or _nothing,_ his heart beating so fast Sehun thinks it might fly away, right out of his chest. Jongin’s smile is so fond.

“No,” he says, and falls to his knees. Sehun hiccups.

He does this like he dances. Gracefully, seriously. With practiced ease. They’re not the same after all, not exactly. Jongin has always been more daring, Sehun thinks, or maybe just more self-aware, and less self-hating. He wonders if the person who taught Jongin how to suck dick told him how beautiful he looks, like this, looking up through his lashes, lips red and swollen. Most likely. It’s a maelstrom of emotions, for Sehun, fear and desire and jealousy mixing up into the world’s deadliest cocktail; until Jongin lifts the hand he had pressed to Sehun’s hip and encourages him to thrust shallowly into his mouth, and it only takes a few seconds for Sehun to come like that, down his throat, hot and wet and dirty and perfect.

Sehun’s chest is heaving when Jongin slithers back up. He looks messy, and he’s hard. Sehun drags his fingers over the bulge, testing. He knows, in theory. Has touched himself way more than enough, has watched enough porn, has imagined it. In theory.

In practice, he stutters. “I’ve never—you’re—”

Jongin undoes his own pants. Against Sehun’s lips, he says _you don't have to_ and he says _I can leave_ and Sehun knows he means it and panics again, _no, I want to, I want you, I want—_

He repeats what he told himself in front of the mirror fourteen days before in France. Not out loud, but the words ring inside his skull nonetheless. _My name is Oh Sehun. I’m gay. Kim Jongin is the love of my life._

“Jongin-ah,” he says quietly, tugging at one of the belt loops on Jongin’s jeans. “Show me how to touch you.”

He’s not—ready, whatever the fuck that means. But he’s on his way there, and he’s tired of waiting. He doesn’t think he will ever _be_ ready if he doesn’t jump right into the water, if he lives like a shadow of his own self. Jongin smiles at him like he did at the Louvre, like he did on the plane, like he did ages ago for the first time when he realized Sehun wasn’t going anywhere. The tenderness of it is devastating.

 _Jongin-ah,_ Sehun doesn’t ask, _show me how to love you._ They fit together like puzzle pieces, not because they were made for each other but because they choose to, always make space to accommodate the other, tuned to each other’s frequencies. _Show me, show me._

Sehun thinks back to Bastille day, on _Rue de la Roquette,_ surrounded by strangers and incomprehensible chatter, too much alcohol in his veins. How Jongin had never walked more than a few meters without looking back for him, instinctively. They had held hands for a good portion of their promenade, along the river.

Not ready, not ready yet, but he still wants to hold hands here, where actions have consequences.

“I love you here,” he tells Jongin, much later, the most belated answer. They’re laying in the same bed, under the same sheets. The sun hasn’t risen yet. “I love you where it counts. I love you where it’s real.”

There’s a picture of them, Jongin grinning, Sehun with melon sorbet on his nose. He makes it his computer wallpaper, for everyone to see.


End file.
